


Close my Eyes

by Vanyel



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Angst, M/M, Moving On, Post-WAR world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 07:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6792412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanyel/pseuds/Vanyel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demo deals with his own aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close my Eyes

Bleary-eyed, Demo blinked as the light came streaming in through the crack in the common room blinds. He groaned and sat up, the blood rushing back into his head as he went from upside-down back to upright, peeling himself off the back of the couch. Just another morning, just another blinding wake-up by the same sunshine after no sleep.   
“Jes’ another weary day fer me to live,” he sighed, reaching over the armrest and picking up the scrumpy bottle he’d dropped sometime last night. Swishing it around, Demo groaned. Empty. As usual. He shouldn’t have even bothered to check.   
Demo didn’t have to check to see that he was waking up alone again. Even in a place where Scout stayed until the wee hours and Spy was willing to be seen, none of them stayed. No one wanted to wake up in the same room as such a drunk monster.

He stood, cracking his back and groaning again, before making his way towards the mess hall. At least they’d all be at breakfast, and perhaps Demo could pretend that anyone was actually willing to be near him for a few minutes before the hangover deafened his ears.  
A handful of heartbeats later, he leaned against the wall, sighing. Nope. Hangover already.  
\----  
Raising the refilled bottle to his lips, Demo took one final swig before the gates opened. Dull the pain, dull the brightness, dull it all and maybe someday the explosions would be as lively as they once were. Before it all went to hell.  
He raised the grenade launcher, eye glinting with purpose. When the world went cold, sometimes the only way to fix it was with a few dozen bangs.  
\----  
They lost.  
“Screw ‘em. Screw ‘em all!” He shouted it to the sky, watching the BLUs close in on them during the Humiliation round. Demo didn’t bother turning to run. He knew who’d find him. It was always the same. Like it had always been, but not the same.

The Soldier came around the corner, and with a grunt, Demo threw the once-again-empty bottle, laughing harshly as it shattered against his shoulder. “There ya go, yeh great lumberin’ idiot! Lot o’ good yer Soldier trainin’ and fancy weapons did for yeh- Ah’m drunk, an’ Ah can still see well enough ta hit yer fat ass!”  
His arms opened wide as the rocket launcher turned towards him, and Demo laughed in the final moments before he was blasted into Respawn.  
\----  
Tipping the bottle back almost straight up, Demo gulped down the last few drops of the bottle, belching softly as he pulled it away from his lips and slumped against the piano, sighing. The room was finally beginning to blur. Perfect. He wouldn’t close his eye tonight.  
“Demoman!”  
Aw crap, him. Demo raised his head slowly, blinking his good eye dazedly at the helmet two inches from his face. “Can ye not shout? Ah’m right here. Ah c’n hear you.” And see him still. Damn. Colors flared, and for a heart-wrenching moment Demo would have sworn that the jacket was not a RED one.  
Soldier pushed his face even CLOSER to Demo’s, frowning. “Private Demoman! You are always nursing from that damn bottle of intoxicant! I thought you were a MAN, not a WEAK BABY!” He grabbed the bottle from Demo’s hand and smashed it against the table before the dazed man could react. “You need to PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, maggot!” With that, he turned on his heel, marching out of the music room and slamming the door loudly behind him.

A few keys clanked as Demo pushed himself up with his arm, shaking his head. “Ifye didn’ look so much like ‘im Ah’d clobber ye,” he slurred at the door in the last moment before everything went fuzzy completely, the last bit of alcohol kicking in. He laid back on the piano bench as the little bit of color around him blurred, an almost victorious expression on his face. Once again, he’d managed to drink until he couldn’t see. Good.  
One hand still rested on the piano, an almost accidental chord ringing out as the world went black.  
\----  
He’d called it a harsh awakening, Soldier loudly trumpeting reveille in his ears, but Demo would also argue he hadn’t truly fallen asleep.  
“Ah’m awake, yeh daft bastard!” He grunted, rolling off the bench and kicking the offending source of noise in the shin to shut him up like the world’s worst alarm clock. “Jes’ not wantin’ ta put up with yer shit right now, all right?”  
Huffing, Soldier marched out of the room, leaving Demo to slap a hand over his forehead in a mix of relief and pain. The trumpet’s blare still echoed in his ears, and a pounding headache was beginning to set in. He’d have to see if he could beg some more aspirin off the doc, maybe offer to let him look at his liver in exchange for another bottle. Not like Medic ever used his painkillers on people under his care anyways, and the Medigun didn’t cure hangovers.  
\----  
Demo was on his second bottle by the time the battle started, drinking with one hand and firing wildly with the other, almost uncaring. What was the point of even caring about it? Nothing was going to go back. They’d been torn apart.  
He yelled like a madman, laying BLUs out left and right with the end of the bottle, uncaring if he went to Respawn or not. Anything to blunt the pain.  
\----  
They won.  
He knew where he was headed without even telling his feet, cornering the BLU Soldier against a wall and bashing his thick helmeted head in with the bottle until it dented.  
Demo stood over his conquest, panting.  
He knew he was crying. He always cried during Humiliation when he did this.  
“Dammit man! Why’d...why’d you....why’d I....why’d we have to....” Smashing the bottle against the ground, Demo peeled the helmet off Soldier’s bloody head, holding his face almost tenderly, looking into those lifeless blue eyes. “We lost what we had....fer some stupid weapons. An’ now....I can’t fall asleep, not without ye. An’ ye don’ even seem ta care. Ye walk around like there ain’ a hole in ye where I once laid, like it don’ hurt ta be alone. Maybe...maybe it don,’ fer ye, but it hurts like nothin’ I ever felt.” He touched his forehead against the corpse’s, shoulders heaving for a few moments as he sobbed silently.

Then his voice hardened. “Ah don’ know why I ever bothered. Shoulda seen that ye were a bastard from day one.” Demo pulled back, his eye narrowed in anger and hurt. “Seems like th’tears in mah eyes won’ disappear, tho I’m sure you ain’ cried for me once. All that trainin’ an’ talkin’....it left you cold. Maybe I should do a few marches meself, see if they’ll leave me as cold.”  
Demo stepped back, picking up his sticky launcher and planting the bombs on the dead Soldier. One, two, three, four, five.  
“See ye in hell, ye blind bastard.”  
The RED team was treated to its usual show of the BLU Soldier’s corpse flying into the sky in pieces, and Demo stalked back towards the base, heading for his room and the stash of bottles hidden under the chemicals cabinet that no one knew about. No matter if the team (led by Soldier of course) had tried confiscating his scrumpy for the sixth time in two months. Demo needed a drink right now.  
\----  
Demo never liked staying in his own room while drinking himself into his nightly stupor, but it seems that Heavy and Medic had set up chess in the music room, and Soldier was not budging from the rec room. Probably planning to catch him and give him another “real men don’t drink on the battlefield” speech. Demo snorted at the thought.  
He set the bottle down, one hand idly trailing down his face. “Look at yerself, Tavish,” he mumbled, hiccuping softly. “Ye blew up yer own house, had yer eye stolen by a wizard, dealt with a feckin’ cursed sword cravin’ fer heads! And a damned blind fool lays ye low jes’ by doin’ his job proper.” The hand lashed out, knocking the bottle onto the floor and spilling the scrumpy into the carpet as Demo pounded the desk with his fist.

Wobbling and basically blind in both eyes from drink, Demo stumbled to his bed, falling onto his back as the springs creaked heavily. They’d gotten weak enough that even just one weight on them made them groan like two.  
Like there was someone else beside him.  
Demo’s hand reached out automatically, groping at empty air for a moment before he slapped his hand over his forhead. “Ye’re the damned blind fool, Tavish DeGroot,” he whispered. “Trustin’ an enemy. An’ what’ve ye got ta show for it? Jes’ another heartache ta bear all on yer own. Oh, an’ a drinkin’ problem.”  
His arm fell back to his side, and Demo stared blindly at the ceiling, slipping into that fitful rest that would last until the harsh morning sunlight fell onto his still-open eyes once more.  
\----  
Setup was always the worst. All those eyes, watching him, judging him, scorning Demo for his open drinking this early in the morning. That’s why he started the instant he woke up; by the time setup arrived, he was drunk enough not to care about what they thought.  
Medic stepped forward, handing him the bottle of painkillers he’d asked for. “Herr Demo...If you ever do need to talk to someone, my door ist always open,” he offered with a weak smile. It fell when Demo merely pushed past him, downing a large dose of the aspirin in another swig of alcohol and muttering something about “It’s somethin’ I gotta deal with meself.”

Leaning against the wall, Demo breathed through his nose as the headache began to clear. They had to begin setup hours before the actual battle, for no reason that anyone but Soldier could process.  
Soldier. Damn. Demo hated that the RED Soldier seemed to be everywhere in his line of sight wherever he turned. It always got him thinking about the man standing behind another gate on the other side of the field. The man who’d torn away from him and left a hole. “Och, ye were my friend...”  
Wait. His eye began to open slowly. “My friend? Were....were ye really?” Demo stood up a little straighter, the bottle slipping slightly from his fingers. They’d gone to weapons expo after weapon expo, true, but Demo always was the one bailing Soldier out from his shenanigans, or buying the drinks at the bar, and he couldn’t for the life of him remember one moment where either of them had acted like any of their friendship would carry over into work. Hell, it had been a regular joke about what weapons would be best for killing the other! Even if they had been friends, it was nothing like the close, above-all-else bond that he lamented losing at the bottom of every bottle.

Working his way through the team, Demo made it back to his locker, setting down the bottle inside on the layer of dust that covered its spot. He reached back, grabbing the hilt of his Claidheamh Mòr and pulling it out, hooking his sheath to his belt. Some of the team watched in confusion, but he ignored them.  
He didn’t need the bottle. He didn’t need to drink this battle. For the first time in months, Demo had a hand on the hilt of his sword as the gate slowly cleared away in a cloud of dust. He could see.  
\----  
The battle drew on, and it turned to Sudden Death, the numbers on the field dwindling rapidly in concentrated areas. Demo stumbled away from the Heavy’s fire, hurriedly grabbing his grenade launcher and sending his head flying. He leaned against the wall, panting for a moment to try and recover his breath-  
And dove out of the way of the shovel that nearly severed his head. Rolling and snapping up to his feet, one hand already drawing his sword, Demo stared at the Soldier facing him. The snarl on his face was a cold one of almost...non-recognition. A slow grin began to spread across Demo’s own face. “Ye....ye never were mine.”  
The BLU blinked confusedly, and Demo said it again. “It took me this long ta realize, but ye were never mine. Never me friend. Ain’ betrayal if there weren’ nothin’ there in the first place.” He hefted his sword up, grinning with a mix of madness and relief.   
They both charged forward with matching cries.

Demo looked down at the head lolling at his feet. Somehow when it was detached like this, it...didn’t hurt so much to look at. Or maybe it was just that he’d seen it so many times. He knelt down, picking it up with both hands and carefully placing it back onto the body’s shoulders. “All Ah needed was time. Time’ll fill any hole, even th’ones scrumpy can’ fix.” He laughed softly, shaking his head. “Ye did me wrong, boyo. But Ah ain’ quite done ye right either. Perhaps now...it’ll be a little easier meetin’ ya out here.”  
Pushing himself back to his feet, Demo tipped his eyepatch at the Soldier, hefting the sword onto his shoulder and turning to go finish off whatever REDs were still roaming, whistling an old drinking song.  
\----  
Demo sat on the edge of the bed, an unopened bottle of scrumpy in his hands. The weight had become so familiar, the smooth neck of the bottle fitting into his palm as if it was molded to fit there.  
He reached out, setting it down on the table. “Ah don’ need ya tonight.” Slipping back under the covers, Demo looked up at the ceiling, sighing to himself. “Ah don’ need anythin’ or anyone tonight.” The bed still felt empty, but it didn’t hurt as much. Slowly, Demo closed his eyes, quickly drifting off into a dreamless sleep for the first time in months.  
Demo was alone.  
And he’d realized that was okay.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was HEAVILY inspired by a song written by my girlfriend, and the lyrics have been worked into the piece.  
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
